Joe Klein has
a colunn just out in this week's edition of Time Magazine that rips into a) Alberto Gonzales, b) Senate Democrats, c) the Bush Administration; and, indirectly, d) the American public. What Klein is outraged about is the complete lack of, well, OUTRAGE over the fact that we're about to confirm a guy who thinks torture is A-OK as our next Attorney General.
And what do we get from our Democratic Senators? Nothing really, barely even a few pitiful peeps of protest. My "favorite" line of the past week belongs to Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware: "We're looking for candor, ol' buddy. I love you, but you're not very candid so far" -- just before he "disappeared for the day," according to Klein.
Look, I'm a realist and am well aware that the Democrats can't stop this nomination. I also realize that Democrats lost the last election big time and are terrorized about looking weak on terror. Finally, I am not naive and realize that this is how Washington works to a large extent, that you have to pick and choose your battles and that, more generally, you have to "know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em."
Having said all that, why the bloody hell do the Democrats have to be so freaking craven? Joe Biden's "'Ol buddy?" and "I love you but..." Blech. How about former Clinton HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros' Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, "Gonzales Is Good for America?" Retch. Or Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar's misty-eyed introduction for a guy who, as a child, was "embarrassed that 10 of us lived in a cramped space, with no hot running water or telephone." (hey, at least it's not as "embarrassing" as if the 10 of them had been forced to form a naked human pyramid while being menaced by vicious dogs and having their photos taken by smiling, laughing American soldiers!). Barf. And on and on.
So, what's this all about? As far as I can tell, it's three things. First, as mentioned above, there's the fact that the Democrats are a minority with almost no power. Second, also as previously stated, the Democrats are terrified to be seen as weak on terror.
But most importantly, I think, is the 1,000-pound gorilla in the room that nobody really wants to talk about too much -- Gonzales is HISPANIC and the Democrats are desperate, absolutely DESPERATE, to keep this huge, traditionally Democratic, voting bloc from defecting to the Republicans.
Could this happen? Absolutely, based on the results of the last election, where the Republicans appear to have gotten the highest share of the Hispanic vote ever (44%, compared to 35% in 2000). Increase that share to 50% or higher, and Democrats can kiss the White House "adios" for many years to come!
Why do Hispanics appear to be trending Republican? This is a complicated subject, deserving of its own diary, but briefly stated, it's the result of: 1) Bush/Rove's careful cultivation of Hispanics for several years now, 2) the Democrats' long-term neglect of (and arrogance towards) that key constituency, and 3) the culturally conservative/"patriotic"/pro-military tendencies of many Hispanics, which fits in nicely with the Republican Party's image these days.
Given all that, it's not surprising to hear Democrat Senators wax poetic about Judge Gonzales's virtues. Still, it makes me want to puke. For god's sake, can't the Democrats figure out a way to reach Hispanic voters without caving in to an unqualified, torture-happy mediocrity who has spent most of his career covering up, defending, and enabling Dubya's bad behavior (e.g., drunk driving, the Kerik pick)? Can't they show some backbone ONCE ina while?!? Or is the behavior towards Gonzales we witnessed the past few weeks the best we can expect from the Democratic Party the next four years on issue after issue? Why does my gut tell me it's going to be the latter? OK, gotta run, I'm feeling really sick again...barf!!
Sunday, Jan. 09, 2005
Where's the Outrage?
Despite numerous reports of torture, there has been little public outcry over the U.S.'s treatment of prisoners
By JOE KLEIN
At the senate confirmation hearing of attorney General--designate Alberto Gonzales last week, we learned that Judge Gonzales grew up impoverished with seven siblings in a shotgun shack without heat or running water in Texas. We learned that Gonzales sold soft drinks at Rice University football games and that he later graduated from Rice and Harvard Law School. We were introduced to his splendid family. And we also learned that Gonzales was complicit, at the very least, in the Bush Administration's decision to use severe physical interrogation techniques on detainees at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.
Didn't you just know that if the U.S. ever sank so low as to provide a legal rationale for torture, it would be gift-wrapped in the American dream? The Judiciary Committee's heart was warmed by Gonzales to the point of thrombosis. An exception was Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. "We have dramatically undermined the war effort by ... playing cute with the law," Graham said, adding that the use of torture had caused us to lose "the moral high ground" and become "more like our enemy."
Gonzales, whose answers to that point had been marked by saccharine amnesia, roused himself: "We are nothing like our enemy ... They are beheading people like Danny Pearl and Nick Berg." Happily, Graham wouldn't let Gonzales get away with it: "But we are not like who we want to be or who we have been ... We have lost our way."
That was a rare moment of passion during a soporific day of questioning. Indeed, all of Washington seems buried under a goose-down comforter of complacency these days. The Republicans are smug, the Democrats disconsolate. The news from Iraq grows worse, but the electorate didn't seem to care about the President's Mesopotamian malfeasance in November, so why get all het up about it now? The astounding news that the Bush Administration was involved in reinterpreting the rules for the use of torture--a fact that has been known since the relevant Justice Department memo was leaked last June--has occasioned ... nothing, not even a burp of public outrage. John Kerry chose not to mention Abu Ghraib once during the presidential debates and, further, chose not to raise the issue of Bush Administration complicity because, I am told, his advisers were afraid that the Republicans would paint him weak on the war on terrorism. Of course, Kerry's defining weakness was his unwillingness to say anything his aides thought would make him sound weak, even if it was palpably true and important and he believed it.
Nor were the Democrats exactly rigorous in their pursuit of the truth last week. Senator Joe Biden didn't ask a question. Instead, he used his entire 10-minute question period to launch a full-bodied rhetorical assault on Gonzales' evasiveness: "We're looking for candor, ol' buddy. I love you, but you're not very candid so far." Biden vowed a withering cross-examination in his second round--and then disappeared for the day. Senator Charles Schumer spent his time nattering on about Senate filibuster rules. But Senator Patrick Leahy did induce Gonzales to admit that, as White House counsel, he had consulted with the Justice Department's office of legal counsel about the torture memo. There were meetings in his White House office. Techniques like waterboarding--in which a detainee is strapped down and made to believe he may be drowned--may have been discussed. Gonzales allowed that he could not quite recall specifically how he felt about waterboarding, but he did generally support the thrust of the Justice Department's decision to severely constrict the definition of torture. Senator Herbert Kohl of Wisconsin elicited Gonzales' acknowledgment that the new Bush Administration policy on torture had "migrated" to the CIA and Pentagon and from there to Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Not one of the Senators bothered to ask whether the President had been informed by his close aide Gonzales that the U.S. had changed its policy on torture. "Why ask?" said a staff aide. "He'd say he couldn't recall. He couldn't even tell us what his own definition of torture was."
In fairness, Gonzales' argument--that stateless, remorseless al-Qaeda terrorists should be detained in a manner different from and stricter than the standard Geneva Convention procedures--has merit. The use of aggressive, nonviolent interrogation techniques, perhaps even drugs like sodium pentothal, may not be inappropriate to elicit information from those intent on the mass murder of civilians. But physical assault is something else entirely. The world now knows that the Bush White House at least tacitly approved the loosening of standards that led to the outrages of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo--and that no one of significance has been sacked for it. True, the offending memo was recently retracted, but the Administration's position on torture remains astonishingly fuzzy. When asked by Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois if U.S. personnel could legally engage in torture under any circumstances, Gonzales said, "I don't believe so, but I'd want to get back to you on that and make sure I don't provide a misleading answer." These words were uttered benignly, helpfully, disgracefully.